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I did a favor three years ago for a friend and helped him out on his a/c. He had some company come out and condemn it and said it would cost few thousand for a realitivity cheap system. He called me and asked for me to look at it and all I found was a older unit (12 year old Ruud at that time) witrh some rust on the coil and a bad contactor. I replaced the contactor and added a Kickstart to the unit and all I charged him was what it cost me for the parts.

I get a call tonight and it was him asking for hismoney back. It seems three years later the capacitor went bad again and he had to call someone else out to fix it and they charged him for the part and labor and service call and after hours call. I just had to laugh and say sorry but I eating dinner right now, call me when you come back to reality.

Well thats why you never want to get involved in installing used stuff.... its not worth it. If you had done it for nothing and given them the unit , they would still be calling you and asking what you are going to do about it or if you feel bad about it not holding up and are ready to find them another one and do it free again.

Originally posted by dec Well thats why you never want to get involved in installing used stuff.... its not worth it. If you had done it for nothing and given them the unit , they would still be calling you and asking what you are going to do about it or if you feel bad about it not holding up and are ready to find them another one and do it free again.

I didn't replace his unit, the company that condemned it was trying to rip him off. All I did was repair the problem he had with his unit.

Exactly, laughed it off and moved on. He'll call again when something else breaks and I'll probably be a sucker and go help him. I do get fringe benifits with him, he's a golf pro in town and can get me on any course public or private year round.
I'll just remember next time to charge him not only for the parts but for my time and write it out there in no guarentee except that until he replaces it it will break again.

Wow now that takes the cake
I do give away some used parts things that are still good but I dont want to stock new like control boards and anything that is unit specific

but I give it to customer they pay for labor and I tell them that there is no warranty (if it breaks in the same season I will cut the a heck of a break on a new one
They also have their choice of getting a brand new one but I will still lend them the used one till the new one comes in
I have never had a single person complain because there FREE part died on them
This guy is a real a$$ and you should tell him that jmho

I'm the biggest sucker around. I help people all the time for nothing or next to nothing. Friends and family I mean.

I'll tell ya, normaly friends understand the help, being it they are the same age and mentality......which is usually true being it they are your friends.

But family.....WOW......

I've done alot of work for my wife's family. She has 9 uncles and aunts.

I can't believe some of the stuff that happens. I've done whole systems by myself, moved condensers, added ducts and lines, small service work.....etc.

Nobody wants to pay family ! They all expect everything for nothing. They almost assume it. It always starts out as a small job that they might give me money for, and ends up a huge thing for next to nothing if anything at all.

The last job....getting mad just thinking of this......for an uncle was a whole 5-ton air handler in an attic by myself. Complete system.

I did a really nice job too. Thing works about as perfect as you can get.

When it was all done, I came back to his house to grab the leftover stuff that was there. Stuff like insulation, couple of open boxes of flex, open bag of ties, the norm. When I get there noone was home. I get a phone call from my supplier about anhour later. He wasn't pleased. It seems that her uncle decided to take all the stuff that was lying in the garage and return it to my supply house !!!! He seen the sticker on something and found out where the place was. My supply house took some of the un opened stuff back reluctantly, and sent him on his way. They called me and said they did it because of me and they wern't happy at all. I explained what happened and they understood and even laughed about it.

Now, monthes later, he comes up to me at a family party and gives me a check. I look at it and ask what it was for. He says it was the $ he got back from the stock he returned. I assume he did it because I wasn't shy about voicing my opinion of what he did. But when I looked at the amount, it wasn't even all of the $ !

I wish I never started doing work for family. Now they all expect it, and none of them want to pay.